I could go on and talk about how Laerryn is not, in the end, motivated by hubris. Though The Age of Arcane is the age of Wizards who believe themselves bigger than gods. Or, or, I could talk about how Laerryn Coramar-Seelie was pushed by grief so deep it doesn’t just come in waves, it never fucking leaves.
How “It’s stupid to try and become a god” because she asked for the gods to save her friend. Pleaded with them to bring them back. That it was hubris that got her friend killed, and Laerryn is not the smartest person in Avalir for nothing. That she crushed it under her heel, but if her best friend, the greatest person she’s ever known had to die for her ambitions than it better well be fucking worth it.
That it is love, and love lost, that motivates her to do the things she does. And the fear of losing love again and again that motivates her to cast blight, despite her having paused for a second to listen.
Pride was her fatal flaw when Evandrian died. But it was not when she helped cause the calamity. It was love and love alone. Because pride is for people who don’t get shit done, pride is for the undeserving. She built a cathedral with her own two hands between working and researching. Between grief and mourning. Of course Laerryn is proud of herself, of course she believes in herself. She’s the goddamn Architect Arcane, she keeps this city afloat, makes discoveries for people to eventually use. She is the heart of the city. But she does not still her hand in pride, but fear, but love.
Love is what causes the Calamity. Love for Loquatious, love for Patia, love for her people. And also deep unsettling grief. Grief for what was lost to her, grief that the gods did not grant Evandrian reprieve. Grief for all the things that she could not save. Why would she waste her time trying to become a god, when she can show the gods that even them, even the mundane, even the mortals that they’ve created can do wonderful things and perform miracles. That they do not need them to grant them wishes, that they can do it themselves instead of waiting for the whims and whimsies of the Primordials to pay them any attention.
Why would the gods give her this power, this intelligence that she’s honed like a finally tuned instrument if not so that she can show them all that Avalir can be? And in the end, how could she learn? Why would she change everything? Change anything. In the end, her point was proven, the things she lost were no longer for naught. How could she ever regret what happened if in the end it was for love?
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TLDR at the bottom, as I know this became very long. My apologies.
I would really like to clarify first that I am not arguing with you or attempting to make you like her and am just attempting to explain my stance since you seemed confused about specifically this: as someone who is very solidly for mage rights in the Dragon Age games and also really likes Vivienne, I do think you overestimate how many fans she has? Which is completely understandable as fandom has cooled a little bit in the last few years, which means there’s less discourse posts floating around, but it used to be that if I found Vivienne content it was vitriolic towards her—she has a canonical Ao3 tag labeled “Vivienne (Dragon Age) Is A Bitch” for example.
We’re not prone to criticizing her character on the regular because she already gets a lot of it, on about the same level as Anders (whom I also am very fond of) and most of it has already been said before.
For examples though, her arguments about mages are genuinely infuriating and make little sense.
She is fantastically racist in the game, which is also very frustrating, though to be fair to her, I’m having trouble thinking of a companion who isn’t at some point or another without ability to correct them (Dorian supporting slavery and his “elven harpy” comment towards, Cole’s “Never trust half an elf” comment which is bad regardless of if they were intending it to be about Michel, Solas and Sera’s everything unfortunately, etc. all come to mind.) Maybe Bull, Leliana, or Josie? I can’t remember them being so off the top of my head.
These things do suck and most Vivienne fans (except for a few, but typically fans who support the fantasy Catholic Church aren’t going to be the type of fans who will bother caring about a Black woman—they’ll usually go for Cullen, the white straight man who is anti-mage and who the narrative actually cares about) are very aware of her flaws, but generally we think it was a very stupid idea to have the first Black companion (that they will actually admit to being Black anyway, unlike Isabela who got whitewashed and Morrigan and Cole, who never really have the fact that they are mixed Black acknowledged or shown in the games) support the oppressive system and use her as a mouthpiece for a conservative agenda.
(Using characters as a mouthpiece for whatever agenda the devs are trying to push with little regard to their actual characters is a very common thing in Inqusition—ex. at one point they have Cole say Cullen was a “good Templar who remembered the mages are people” when Cullen literally has a line in 2 saying “Mages aren’t people like you and me.” which is a direct quote from him, and even though Cole should by all rights be terrified by Cullen. Also, all of Varric’s Inquisition characterization.)
I mean, her companion quest is just there to have you distrust her briefly (the quest is named after a classic villain line and the youth potion paper) before “surprising” the player with the the fact that she… has layers? Cares about someone? Which is so… incredibly stupid on the Dev’s parts for a variety of reasons that if I talk about now I will start getting genuinely angry over.
I also think she has some very redeeming qualities. I personally found that she was very compassionate towards an Inquisitor she was friends with. It doesn’t stop her from being opportunistic, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing necessarily. I think this bit specifically is probably something we won’t agree on however, since we have very different readings on these moments, so I’m going keep it at that.
None of this is meant to convince you to like her at all, but I wanted to explain my perspective in doing so since you seemed confused about it.
TLDR: I, and many other pro-mage Vivienne fans, are aware of her flaws, but we think that was a terrible writing decision and do see several redeemable qualities in her character. None of this is meant to sway you in your dislike of her, but I wanted to explain my perspective since you said you didn’t understand how someone could like Vivienne and be pro-mage.
(P.S. I am very sorry if any of this comes off as condescending or if this was completely unwelcome. I’m autistic and have a hard time with tone, both reading it and delivering it. I’m working on it, but I’m still not good at tone over text.)
I. I understand all of this. I’ve criticized the fact they made the first black companion a huge bitch and a bigot against her own kind from the second it became clear that was her personality? But her being the first black companion also doesn’t innately make her a good character. Being a minority doesn’t make what a character does automatically ok or less bad, and idealization is dehumanization as much as villainizing is. It makes BioWare’s writers and their decisions gross, and their agenda gross, any anyone who uses her sucking as an excuse to be racist or disproportionately hateful to only the black companion horrible, but it at the same time doesn’t just…make her good, or ok.
She’s written stupidly, but the character they made is a bigot given no real character growth who tries to ruin the advances for mage rights even if you put forth the best possible outcomes (Lelianna Divine, allied Mages) and befriended Vivienne. She straight sucks. She does. She is a bad, selfish, emotionally manipulative person with no empathy for those of her kind less privileged than her, and a species traitor. (Or whatever? Can’t think of a better thing to categorize Mages as. Class??) It’s not like I only complain about her. I’ve been just as liberal complaining about Doriana and Sera and every other fucked up choice the Devs made. If you’ve seen anything I posted the past week, you’ve probably seen me having a meltdown over how utterly unsalvagable Inquisition is as a game. As for Viv herself, she’s not devoid of good qualities. She’ll be nice if she’s your friend, you’re right, but you have to be kind of terrible to befriend her at all, and so? So is everyone on the planet. That’s what fair weather friends /are/. But beyond that, yeah. She’s not all evil. She cared about the guy she was mistress to. She’s not a monster. But she high key is a terrible person and sucks. You’re right, the devs making her quest a quote from the Queen from Snow White of all things, to encourage a player to lie to her, is fucked up. So is literally everything they did to her. So is how they treated Bull, and Dorian, and Sera, and all kinds of things. But that doesn’t make the character good.
From your own description, you don’t actually like canon Vivienne. You like the HC version you rewrote in your head. And that’s fair, and it’s a fair way to say fuck you to the devs—I do the same with Solas. But you’ll never see me not absolutely accusing the shit out of canon end game Trespasser Solas—he’s a racial supremacist genocide intellectual dude bro, which is a horrific choice for the devs to make esp considering his preTrespasser characterization, but that’s still what he was. I can ignore that and make my HCs, but I’m not going to pretend canon wasn’t what it is. It was. And I wasn’t complaining I see alternate takes on Vivienne, but that I see people talk about Canon Viv like she’s a girlboss while claiming to be pro mage, and those things just concretely do not and cannot go together. And that complaint absolutely stands. It’s cool and even good to hc and rewrite her as a different person. But that’s not canon Viv anymore then, it’s an OC that should have been in the game.
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will there be... other parts... after prime fortune........ i love ur writing sm im aaaaaaaaaaAA
so many people are asking to be added to the taglist as if there’s gonna be but i wasn’t planning on it???
like? the only reason i wrote prime fortune was because i wanted to try and learn more abt cyno’s character and his motives in relation to sagau—that’s why the whole paragraph abt his religious beliefs was shoved in—without actually doing the 3.2 quest(bc school n shit) but…. ????
like if. if people want a 3rd part they’re either gonna have to specify what it’s gonna be or wait until my mind puts out an idea in relation to it. i do like the concept—cyno+tighnari+collei working together to hide you from the akademiya whilst also silently trying to gather more evidence to take down the imposter while also keeping this a secret from you because they don’t want their true god to think they’re incompetent/didn’t know from the start (but you just don’t know what they’re doing nor that you’re god)—and i think it’s really cool… but there was never meant to be a part two to begin with, let alone a third.
like.. TL;DR: im down to write a third part, but i’ll either need time for my mind or ideas sent in, and even then it’s still up in the air. i liked how opportunities arisen ended, and though i liked prime fortune’s ending a little less, it doesn’t change the fact that i don’t know how to continue—
oh, and thanks for the compliment! i’m glad you enjoyed :)
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